They said it would never happen, not in a million years, but then late last year it did: the 1960s “Batman” tv series was freed from copyright quagmire and released for the first time ever on multiple home viewing formats. What an immense sigh of relief for crust-laden artifacts such as myself who grew up marveling at the reruns in a barren pre-Michael Keaton Bat world. Had to be 1984 when I first caught Adam West overacting in my living room. I was five. Milk cost $1.94. Orson Welles wasn’t dead yet. Anything seemed possible.

The last time I remember a channel airing “Batman” was fourteen years ago, on TV Land. I’m sure they’ve played somewhere since then, but who has time to watch television as it happens? I need Neil Hamilton and Stafford Repp on demand. For my on demand lifestyle.

Praise be to the corporate gods for packaging euphoric childhood memories and selling them to me at a reasonable price. For once, capitalism works.

Before the episode-by-episode breakdown, a few general comments:

I. The writers/producers of “Batman” really loved gassing their characters—that is to say, spraying plumes of brightly colored smoke into their faces to rob them of consciousness. It happens in practically every single episode. Was it that prevalent in the comics? Seems like it’d be easier (and cheaper) to just conk everybody on the head with a blackjack. “Batman” was aimed mostly at children, I suppose, so maybe they were trying to avoid inciting similar violence in American living rooms. Maybe it cost a lot of money to develop the colored smoke effect so they used it as much as they could. “Batman” definitely had a strict budget (they didn’t even paint the Joker’s exposed wrists to match his face).

II. Adam West and Burt Ward are so natural, so genuine, as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson you almost wish the series had dialed down the costumed hijinks and focused more on life above the Batcave. That Adam West I can see as James Bond, that Burt Ward I can see in The Graduate (which Ward reportedly turned down in favor of “Batman”). Perhaps this charm is why so many people close to them who ostensibly don’t know they’re Batman and Robin choose to ignore the insane coincidences. Wow, the guy who answers the Batphone sounds just like Bruce’s butler, that’s some funky shit. Oh, you guys gotta go do something inexplicable that you never mentioned until this moment after Alfred whispered in your ear? Hey, none of my business, man. By the way, Dick, you smell just like Robin.

III. Something I never noticed before in the opening cartoon is after Batman and Robin shake hands and Batman looks toward the camera (as he turns into the program logo) Robin continues to look at him, grinning from ear to ear. Like, Robin has such reverence for the Dark Knight, he can’t stop looking at him. It makes me uncomfortable.

IV. There’s a theory that, despite being filmed and airing in the late ’60s, “Batman” actually takes place in the early ’60s, before JFK’s assassination. There are little clues, like newspaper headlines and asides in the dialogue, none of which I can remember specifically. This theory is plausible if not a tad asinine. Were the producers afraid people would call Batman a draft dodger? This begs the question: if Batman were real, would the government make him go to Vietnam, or would it be his choice? What the hell could Batman even do in a war? He never uses guns. He doesn’t have a shield and/or super strength like Captain America. He’d just be some costumed detective standing on a rice patty.

V. “Batman” is an overwhelmingly white show, but when you do see people of color among the cast they always seem to be in authoritative positions (cops, reporters, store managers, etc). That’s progressive compared to the 1978 Superman movie, where the only person of color is the pimp who jumps up momentarily to compliment Superman on his “bad out-fit.”

VI. If we’re to believe the hand-painted signage outside the Batcave, Gotham City is fourteen miles from Wayne Manor. So Bruce Wayne does not actually live in Gotham. He lives in some tony suburb. Must be a tax thing.

VII. Two half hour episodes make up one complete story on “Batman” and originally ABC aired them over as many consecutive nights (Wed-Thurs). Not sure why they didn’t just make the program a full hour; “Batman” is usually presented in syndication as a 60 minute thing. The business is weird.

Now, let’s tear into the adventure.

1. “Hi Diddle Riddle” / 2. “Smack In The Middle”

Strong opener, could be the best entries of the season. The Riddler hatches an ingenious plan: stage a crime, sue Batman for false arrest, unmask the Caped Crusader in a court of law. He pulls off the first two-thirds and makes Batman look like a Grade A chump. The scene that follows all that is one of the few times the Dynamic Duo actually seem defeated; as Bruce and Dick, they sit crestfallen in Wayne Manor, watching a Gotham newscaster explain their dilemma. Also, although they defeat the Riddler in the end, they don’t capture him, proving that this guy is top tier trouble for Gotham. Of course, you know that just from Frank Gorshin’s performance—he plays the Riddler as an unrepentant sadist. “You’re really scared, aren’t you?” he asks Robin at one point, grinning with satisfaction. Hell, I was.

3. “Fine Feathered Finks” / 4. “The Penguin’s A Jinx”

Penguin has never been any favorite of mine. On paper, “what if Franklin Roosevelt was a dick obsessed with fish?” sounds fun, but something just doesn’t connect for me. You know, I’m not a purple top hat kinda guy. The digital remastering also does nothing for the gloriously phony nose Burgess Meredith sports as Das Peng. At any rate, Burgy growls his way through a frame-up positing Batman as the real criminal, and at least with this baddie you can always count on a few solid groans over his punny civilian aliases (K.G. Bird, P.N. Quinn).

5. “The Joker Is Wild” / 6. “Batman Is Riled”

The Joker is Batman’s number one foe, but instead of giving him a fitting dramatic introduction “Batman ’66” opens on the non-threatening scenario of our Clown Prince playing softball in prison (looks just as weird as it sounds). You’ll never believe this but the Joker escapes and soon terrorizes Gotham with confetti, sneezing powder, and other party store gimmicks. Eventually Laughing Boy invades a televised performance of Pagliacci, during which he hopes to unmask Batman before an audience of however many people were watching televised performances of Pagliacci in 1966. I sorta wish they kept the Joker in the traditional harlequin outfit he wears during these scenes. Way more frightening. Any way he’s dressed, Cesar Romero manages to lend the Joker a strange sexuality, especially when he uses adjectives like “succulent” and draws out Batman’s name as if post-orgasm.

7. “Instant Freeze” / 8. “Rats Like Cheese”

George Sanders would make a great brooding heavy even without the Mr. Freeze character. Still, it’s nice to have that extra layer wherein Batman is responsible for turning this crook into an ice cube-sucking freak of nature. People tend to bag on Adam West’s physique not being all that resplendent in the Bat costume but the scene with multiple Batmen proves West filled the spandex better than most. Toward the end Freeze offers Bats a cordial but he declines, for this Dark Knight is a teetotaler. Do you think anybody could really be Batman without taking a drink? Seems like a stressful life. On the other hand, he’s got a kid to look out for, he can’t be getting sloshed if there’s a chance Robin might be kidnapped or injured or tied to a giant whatever.

9. “Zelda The Great” / 10. “A Death Worse Than Fate”

Renowned magician Zelda goes crooked, teaming up with everyone’s favorite “strange Albanian genius” Eivol Ekdol for a robbery/counterfeiting scheme. This eventually turns into a kidnapping caper when Zelda snatches Dick Grayson’s elderly Aunt Harriet, ties her up, and dangles the old biddy over a vat of boiling oil. Nabbing Dick himself would probably yield greater ransom but Aunt Harriet’s easier to burgle. What’s interesting about these episodes is Zelda is never totally convinced a life of crime is for her—she’s just struggling so much as a magician she has no other recourse. C’mon, Harry Blackstone, help a sister out. Fuckin’ magic cabal.

11. “A Riddle A Day Keeps The Riddler Away” / 12. “When The Rat’s Away The Mice Will Play”

King Boris, a dignitary from an unnamed and ill-defined European country, comes to Gotham and is almost immediately seized by the Riddler. Another fine Gorshin performance but the real entertainment comes when Batman and Robin are tied to enormous spinning wheels and it is hilariously clear in the wide shots that dummies are substituting for the actors. I remember that looking fake as hell even when I was a child. Whomever is responsible for those dummies should be ashamed, if they’re still alive. If they’re dead, I hope they carried that shame to their grave(s). Harsh words but it’s not that hard to make a dummy not look like a sack of loose potatoes.

13. “The Thirteenth Hat” / 14. “Batman Stands Pat”

Perhaps intimidated by David Wayne’s flamboyantly fussy performance as the Mad Hatter, these entries find Adam West dialing up his hamminess to radioactive levels. West shouts and gesticulates like an angry grandpa at the Elks Lodge and subsequently flushes away all vestiges of Bat being a cool, collected character. Naturally Mad Hatter is consumed with owning Batman’s cowl and goes to great lengths in attempting to obtain it. This certifies him for the loony bin in my eyes because this cowl is so weird-looking compared to the cowl of the comics (and later film properties). Granted, it’s the cowl that most resembles the true look of a bat (stout, wide), but you get my drift. By the way, what’s the penalty for cowl theft? Like $50 and time served? I think that would even be laughed out of “Night Court.”

A landmark story only because it confirms that Gotham City and New York are two separate and co-existing entities. In the next pair of episodes it is revealed that Gotham is also on the BMT transit line; this prompted me to look up the exact location of Gotham in the comic universe and it turns out the bustling urban hive is situation in north east New Jersey. Anyway, the Joker’s crimes in these eps are pretty inconsequential. Rigging vending machines in some hair-brained attempt to corrupt teenagers. On the plus side, he fires off a pretty funny dead dog joke and manages to get Batman and Robin in electric chairs. This arc also presents a painful scene where Burt Ward has to pretend to be a happenin’ street though. Hey Kookie, lend me your knife so I can stab this kid.

17. “True Or False-Face” / 18. “Holy Rat Race”

False-Face is a text book example of a character who is very comic book but not cartoonish. I attribute this to the fact you can’t see Malachi Throne’s face contorting behind the mostly opaque False-Face mask (by the way, the name Malachi Throne has an amazing ring to it, they should have worked it into the script somehow). The Dutch angles feel a little out of control here but maybe that’s intentional, maybe that’s supposed to underscore how topsy-turvy this adventure is (Batman v. the Unknown). False-Face proves so tough that the Dynamic Duo have to fall back on Alfred to escape the harrowing climax; I like to believe the underground gossip in Gotham points to a third shadowy figure in the Batman equation, one alleged to be of advanced age (hence his seclusion) but who never fails as a nuclear option.

19. “The Purr-fect Crime” / 20. “Better Luck Next Time”

Consider the family dynamic that exists between Julie Newmar’s powerful feline-obsessed antagonist and the Dynamic Duo: Catwoman is the bored mother figure seeking a liberating and lawless independence; Batman, the lovelorn father too aloof to know what to do; Robin, the eager son who just wants Mommy and Daddy to love each other again. Wait ’til you catch the horror on Boy Wonder’s face when it appears Catwoman (who spends her story trying to locate the lost treasure of some made up pirate) dies at the end of the second episode. Poor Dick. Catwoman, fyi, has one of the best accompanying leitmotifs of Nelson Riddle’s scoring—eerie, hypnotic, fun.

21. “The Penguin Goes Straight” / 22. “Not Yet, He Ain’t”

In which the Caped Crusaders appear to be dead for a small chunk of time, saddening Gotham but exciting that ever fiendish Penguin…who, as it turns out, is trying to trick the world into believing he’s become a do-gooder. This is the pair of episodes that Tim Burton partially cribbed from for 1992’s Batman Returns, including Penguin’s theft of the Batmobile. Who knows why a covert crime-fighting team would insist on tooling around in a convertible. Seems like an open invitation of sorts. Penguin’s carjacking allows for introduction of the Batcycle, which is a far more bad-ass means of conveyance. Ghost Rider would be a complete joke if he was riding out of Hell in a Sedan.

23. “The Ring Of Wax” / 24. “Give ‘Em The Axe”

Usually the requisite bad girl or “moll” amongst a gang of male villains in “Batman” is just that, a wayward youth blinded by power. Here, however, the lady by Riddler’s side (as he tries to uncover some weird Incan treasure) is a cape-wearing figure called the Moth—a budding mastermind in her own right, we may assume. It’s a shame they didn’t give her more to do (or even her own episode later on). A tremendous scene pops up about midway wherein Batman asks a librarian, voice absent of irony, “Have you seen any unusual looking people around here?” The librarian says she has not and somehow avoids comment on the two guys in front of her dressed as winged forest creatures.

25. “The Joker Trumps An Ace” / 26. “Batman Sets The Pace”

A visiting Maharajah! The Batmobile cruising over a golf course! Someone writing Batman a check and misspelling his name! Definitely not the most exciting outing…they meander around a fairly eye-rolling money laundering plot, stretching out the flimsy premise/final reveal, but I’m forever grateful we get to hear Cesar Romero shout, “Egads, I’ve been deflated!” Again, so unnecessarily sexual.

27. “The Curse Of Tut” / 28. “The Pharaoh’s In A Rut”

The blustery charm of Victor Buono as King Tut makes up for lackluster action. The bulk of episode one is Gotham trying to figure out what to do about a giant statue of a cat that suddenly appears in a park and begins making strange pronouncements. Seems like a noise complaint, but the authorities call Batman anyway. Later, for the umpteenth time this season, a woman comments upon Batman’s handsome looks, which is nuts because 80% of his face is covered at all times. King Tut’s backstory is interesting because it’s the only time “Batman” references the social unrest of the ’60s: Tut was a Yale prof cracked on the head during a student riot; he woke up believing he was the famed Egyptian. Never mind the fact King Tut died at around 18 and this guy is 40. Brain injuries are no laughing matter.

29. “The Bookworm Turns” / 30. “While Gotham City Burns”

Are you ready for the darkness? This one opens with Commissioner Gordon getting shot in the back and falling off a bridge. Later, Batman goes into a Manson-esque trance while attempting to figure out his enemy’s next move, spooking Chief O’Hara and every viewer at home. Though Roddy McDowell gives the nefarious Bookworm a frightful edge anytime he saunters onscreen the character’s trump card is real corny: he traps the Caped Crusaders in a giant cook book, choking them with noxious soup fumes. It all pays off in the end when a defeated Bookworm meets Bruce Wayne; after some banter, the Bookworm dismisses Bruce, exclaiming, “This guy’s almost as annoying as Batman!”

31. “Death In Slow Motion” / 32. “The Riddler’s False Notion”

The Riddler sets up a bunch of robberies he also films so he can sell the resulting movie to Gotham’s biggest silent film buff (some people want to meet the Dynamic Duo, this guy just wants to watch them run around at twice their normal speed in black and white). Somehow the Riddler also finds time to spike the lemonade at a temperance party; tensions are stirred and while blitzed on the drank Commissioner Gordon angrily dismisses Chief O’Hara’s assertion that Maury Wills is “50 times better” than Honus Wagner. You think this will be the best part of the episode until Robin, tied up and thrown off the ledge of a high rise, staves death by catching the Batarang in his fucking teeth. Batman of course uses this as a teaching moment re: dental hygiene. Yeah, it’s okay for a minor to fight crime without a bullet proof vest, but heaven forbid you stop flossing.

33. “Fine Finny Fiends” / 34. “Batman Makes The Scenes”

This time Alfred is kidnapped, by the Penguin, a.k.a. Knott A. Fish. The Peng is trying to uncover the location of some secret millionaire’s dinner being held by Bruce Wayne. This is one of those plots that wouldn’t happen in the 21st Century. No millionaire dinner is secret from the expanse of the Internet. The most fascinating part here is the Penguin’s henchman, Shark and Octopus; Shark looks suspiciously like Clint Howard and Octopus is wearing a very obvious bald cap (or he’s actually bald and has some insane skin condition at the base of his neck). “Batman” hench work is good stuff if you could get it. Joe E. Tata did it a handful of times.

And there you have it. “Batman ’66” Season One. Still plenty weird, still plenty fun. Satiating for a fan of über-insanity such as myself but who knows how the uninitiated would feel at this point (to wit: I can’t stand a goddamn second of “Sigmund & The Sea Monsters” any time I’m trapped in front of it). Glancing at the Season Two lineup I see things kick off with Art Carney as the Archer. Somehow I am not fatigued from the previous 34 chapters of lunacy. I’m ready to dive in. Holy crippling addiction.

P.S. Did I forget to mention that in the very first episode Batman goes to a nightclub and go-go dances with Jill St. John? What, like you’re not gonna go-go dance with Jill St. John? I think we can forgive the Bat for actin’ a fool there. And he’s got better moves than Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man.

One fine summer afternoon in rural Connecticut, when I was maybe ten or eleven, my father asked me if I wanted to go to the Baseball Hall of Fame the following day. This sounded very exciting but I was keenly aware that 1. the Baseball Hall of Fame was several hours away from our home and 2. on the very same day WPIX was going to begin showing “Batman ’66” reruns from season three—the first episodes with Batgirl. So my response was along the lines of, “Yeah, that would be great, but we can’t do it if we won’t be home by five o’clock, because I’ve never seen Batgirl and I want to see Batgirl.”

My dad thought this was an insane reservation to have and told me in no uncertain terms. He must have already purchased the Hall of Fame tickets. How, I don’t know. Not the Internet—you couldn’t use it for that kind of stuff yet—so maybe magic? At any rate, we went, and you know what? I had an awesome time. I saw a lot of cool stuff at that dang ol’ Baseball Hall of Fame. I can’t think of any way the visit could have been better (well, maybe if Darryl Strawberry had been our personal guide).

Still, I remember looking at my watch as it hit five o’clock (we were turning onto the highway to get home; I had an Oakland Athletics pennant in my grubby little hands) and letting out a little sigh. For whatever reason I hadn’t thought to use the VCR to record this inaugural Batgirl episode, so it was just sailing into my living room unwatched. It felt like I was missing some major television event. The re-airing in 1989 of a 1968 “Batman” episode that millions of people had already seen.

Below is a sliver from A Convenient Parallel Dimension, the Ghostbusters history book I’d been working on for the past few years, a book Taylor Trade wanted to publish until we discovered an official GB history book is coming from Sony this Fall. This particular portion covers one of the most interesting stretches in franchise history: the period between the first film and the 1989 sequel. Keep in mind this is a pretty early draft reflecting minimal research; tributaries would have been much richer had this project survived. At any rate, you’ll get an idea of how the whole thing would have read, and maybe you’ll learn yourself a thing or two.

Hollywood has never been widely acclaimed for integrity or restraint. This is particularly true of 1980s Hollywood, where the prestige pictures of the ’70s faded away in favor of broad blockbusters and endless sequels. The bottom line ruled and studios squeezed as much as they could out of already proven formulas. Rocky Balboa was spread across three sequels; John Rambo, two (wherein Rambo was transformed from tortured everyman into bare-chested cartoon killing machine). There were eight Friday The 13ths, five Nightmare on Elm Streets. Three Cannonball Runs, three Back to the Futures, three Supermans. Caddyshack II, The Jerk Too, Arthur 2: On The Rocks.

And yet we almost exited the 1980s with just one Ghostbusters, despite the original film’s mammoth success. This is mainly because the one person in Hollywood violently opposed to the sequel-ization and blockbustering of movies was, ironically, also the single figure who could start or stop a Ghostbusters II. And stop it he did for as long as he could.

David Puttnam was a London native who abandoned the world of advertising for a career in film production, beginning with work on mid-’70s entries such as That’ll Be The Day, Lisztomania, and Alan Parker’s infamous 1976 kiddie gangster flick Bugsy Malone (starring sixteen year old Scott Baio in the title role). Through his own Enigma Productions, Puttnam managed to produce a series of acclaimed movies including Cannes favorite The Duellists, 1981’s multiple Academy Award winning Chariots of Fire, and landmark Cambodian drama The Killing Fields. It was this track record, plus Puttnam’s general rap about making “inspirational, unforgettable films” which helped to “raise the spirit of the whole world,” that impressed David Goizueta, CEO of Coca-Cola, the company that bought Columbia Pictures in 1982.

Things had been rocky for Columbia during the tenure of CEO Frank Price, who was installed in 1978. Hits like Tootsie, Kramer vs. Kramer, Gandhi, and Ghostbusters (which Price greenlit before his exit) were offset by numerous duds and disappointments. Neighbors, the final collaboration between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, was a strange mess that went nowhere at the box office. It was the same story with Seems Like Old Times, a Chevy Chase heist comedy that at least managed to strike a chord with film critics. Worst of all was 1941, an outlandish war spoof directed by Steven Spielberg and co-producted with Universal Pictures; to this day, 1941 is remembered as the aggressively unfunny smudge that signaled the abrupt end of Spielberg’s untouchable streak.

Frank Price’s replacement Guy McElwaine fared no better. In fact, he may have done worse: though McElwaine did get the Karate Kid franchise off the ground he also sunk fortunes into several projects that quickly came to define cinematic disaster: Richard Pryor’s masturbatory Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, the Warren Beatty/Dustin Hoffman desert spectacle Ishtar, and soft core adventure flop Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Desperate for balance, David Goizueta gave David Puttnam a three year term as Columbia’s CEO in 1986 with a parachute of $3 million.

Unfortunately, Puttnam was not interested in balance. While Goizueta had been enraptured by the Briton’s talk of enriching, uplifting film product he’d apparently fallen deaf to Puttnam’s frothing hatred of socially irresponsible and ethic-lacking “big budget hokum,” something Puttnam would put a complete stop to at Columbia if he could.

Since plans for the first Karate Kid sequel had been finalized six hours before his installment, Puttnam (right) couldn’t cancel it—but he did fire everyone who put the deal together. Puttnam was disgusted that Columbia subdivision Tri-Star produced the second Rambo and made no effort to bite his tongue on the matter. As for Ghostbusters, the studio’s most beloved film, to David Puttnam it was just more disgustingly expensive tripe, worse so because of the presence of Bill Murray, whom Puttnam didn’t like for a perceived lack of altruism.

“[Bill Murray] is an actor who makes millions off his movies, but gives nothing back to his art,” Puttnam announced during a British Press luncheon in 1986, following fawning comments about Robert Redford’s charitable actions. “[Bill Murray is] a taker.”

Word got back to Murray, who was incensed and vowed not to make Ghostbusters II so long as Puttnam reigned at Columbia. This wouldn’t be a problem as Puttnam was only interested in a sequel to the studio’s biggest hit if it could be made cheaper than the original and with all new talent (thereby avoiding a project the CEO felt would exemplify “packaging”—loading a movie with writers and actors all from the same talent agency).

Of course, the vague irony is Bill Murray wasn’t exactly gung ho about a Ghostbusters sequel either. Murray enjoyed playing Peter Venkman in the first film but hadn’t been convinced to sign on until Columbia promised to bankroll one of his dream projects: a remake of 1946 World War I drama The Razor’s Edge. Directed by period specialist John Byrum, The Razor’s Edge filmed in Europe just prior to Murray’s participation in Ghostbusters and was the first project of his to be released in the wake of Venkman-mania.

Unfortunately, the world was not ready for any kind of “serious” Bill Murray. Critics savaged Razor’s Edge for offering too nonchalant a hero in a film that moved with all the gusto of a snail. Audiences stayed away and the movie only made half of its budget back. Whatever pain Murray suffered from this failure was probably compounded by Ghostbusters’ monolithic success. There was no question Bill Murray was beloved—so long as he was being “funny.” Wrestling with complicated emotions, the actor retreated to France for several years, returning to the States to pick up his career for 1988’s Christmas Carol update Scrooged.

It was on the set of Scrooged that Dan Aykroyd called Bill Murray for a meeting to “clear the air” about Ghostbusters II. David Puttnam had been ousted from Columbia in December of 1987; his replacement Dawn Steel made one of her first orders of business figuring out what it would take to bring the boys in grey back together. Now it fell squarely on Akyroyd, Murray, co-star/writer Harold Ramis, and director Ivan Reitman to get the ball rolling. Upon receiving his old friend’s call, Murray allegedly sighed into the phone and replied, “Well, fuck it. I’m here now anyway.”

Preliminary research suggested any kind of Ghostbusters follow-up would make over $280 million in the United States alone. Alas, it was where that money would end up going that caused initial friction. Aykroyd and Ramis were still upset over the large back end deals super-agent Mike Ovitz swung for Murray and Reitman on the first film; as co-founders they wanted their fair share of profits. Murray was certain he deserved even more money for a sequel than what he netted from the original; Reitman also wanted a raise and a new contract that would shield the production from destructive outside forces (read: handsy Columbia executives). These were the core issues the quartet discussed over a reportedly grueling seven hours in a Santa Barbara hotel conference room that had been outfitted (by Ovitz) with scores of Ghostbusters merchandise.

Eventually it was all sorted: in addition to writing fees and scale, Aykroyd and Ramis would receive 6.4% of all Ghostbusters II profits; Murray negotiated 15% and no other pay than scale; Retiman’s salary was actually cut in half from the first movie but he did get the same profit percentage as Aykroyd and Ramis as well as that new contract. The franchise’s other talents—Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and Rick Moranis—also received pay raises but none of the back end. This was fine with Hudson, as his true interest lay in having a larger role in the sequel. Moranis, on the other hand, needed less screen time because he had already committed so much of 1988 to making Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and Parenthood.

One can assume Sigourney Weaver desired a larger check for Ghostbusters II, though that was something of a foregone conclusion thanks to the Oscar buzz surrounding some of her other projects (Aliens, Gorillas In The Mist).

Supposedly, Dan Aykroyd had a story for Ghostbusters II by the Spring of 1985, which was either set many years after the first film (wherein we see the Ghostbusters running a very successful and highly technical operation from atop a Trumpian high rise) or immediately after the events of the first movie. The initial plot is said to have involved the kidnapping of Weaver’s Dana Barrett by evil fairies who hold her captive in ancient Scotland. By the time everything was ready to go in 1988, the Ghostbusters II script had mutated into the Ghostbusters versus commanding 16th Century spirit warlord Vigo the Carpathian, risen anew from neon pink slime that proves some kind of conduit for negative human emotion.

Originally Vigo was to possess Aykroyd’s character Ray Stanz for large swaths of the film, sabotaging the inner workings of the Ghostbusters and unleashing a new hell upon New York City. Absent Stanz and unable to come up with any other worthy replacement, the paranormal exterminators are forced to train their wimpy accountant/lawyer Louis Tulley (Moranis) to be the new fifth Ghostbuster. A subplot would find Peter Venkman once again grappling romantically with Dana—only this time, he’d have to contend with Dana’s ex husband, a dark and mysterious European named Janosz.

Ivan Reitman wasn’t fond of the script, calling it too “heady and dark.” The director didn’t think the Ghostbusters should be fractured by a possession and also felt there was too much action. Columbia head Dawn Steel, on the other hand, thought there should be more action. Additionally, to make up for Moranis’s absence, Steel suggested the Janosz character be rewritten as some other form of comic relief. Reitman relented on both points, though eventually Reitman got his way on the possession—that element was whittled down to a very brief scene in the end of the movie.

Ghostbusters II began filming on November 28, 1988. Despite the difficulties in getting everyone together again there were no major on set conflicts. Still, while the material struck the cast as humorous and in the vein of the first film, there was little doubt regarding the fact they were creating a mere product, something expected of them for the sake of money. As Harold Ramis told Rolling Stone the following June while promoting the movie, “Some comedies satisfy the requirements of art and some are gratuitous pandering. We’re somewhere in between.”

This go-through-the-motions, what-the-hell-let’s-get-paid attitude is part of what doomed Ghostbusters II to be frozen in a sad mediocrity. The other part was the creators’ strange belief they were somehow in direct competition with a much-ballyhooed six foot bat scheduled to appear on movie screens across the globe in the Summer of 1989.

– the full title of this just released documentary is The Death Of Superman Lives: What Happened?, which seems like a perfect opportunity to make at least one Fred Berry reference but the filmmakers hold back

– this is a fantastic watch if you’ve ever wondered exactly how concept art fits into the movie-making process and/or what it’s like to be a concept artist in Hollywood; these people churn out incredible work that usually never sees the light of day (unless the film is a massive hit or a notorious implosion)

– the legend of Superman Lives, a.k.a. the aborted Tim Burton/Nic Cage Superman movie, is a bizarre and engrossing one, and hats off to TDoSL for snagging so many direct sources (Burton, producer Jon Peters, assorted screenwriters) to unravel the tale; still, they couldn’t get Cage, the revoked Superman himself, and as it stands the doc decides to gloss over or omit a handful of really vital points (the Jimmy Olsen ethnicity debate, screenwriter Kevin Smith’s original casting picks, the ferocity of the Smith/Burton snit)

– at one stage in Superman Lives they would have put Cage in the traditional Super togs and the pictures from that costume fitting will make you believe a Coppola could be the Last Son of Krypton

– the version of Brainiac Tim Burton was cooking up cuts a little too close to his Mars Attacks! aliens, which I think demeans the twelfth level intellect from Colu (of course, at this point I’d take Brainiac as a sassy animated kitten—anything to depose the standard Supe film baddie Lex Luthor)

– overall The Death Of Superman Lives: What Happened? has a bit of an amateur feel and that is in no way a criticism; it helps convey an earnest “by the fans, for the fans” sentiment, an endearing approach for any piece of media (especially one about a collapsed comic book property)

– on a scale of 1 to 10 I give this doc a 7.5, mainly for lack of Cage

– next up I hope these filmmakers tackle the legend of Batman Triumphant, a.k.a. the Batman movie Warner Bros wouldn’t let Joel Schumacher make after the colossal turding of Batman & Robin, wherein Howard Stern may have played Scarecrow and Jack Nicholson would have returned as the Joker in one of Batman’s dreams

Last night Paul Feig tweeted out this photo of the new Ecto 1, a.k.a. the car in which his rebooted Ghostbusters will be cruisin’. Looks hype to me, like a cross between the original Ecto and the car from Blues Brothers. Definitely more on point than many of the fan recreations you see out there.

I’m not as punk rock as I thought—I don’t like being out on the highways of America and seeing Jeep Cherokees or Ford Fiestas in the iconic dressings of the Ecto. Would you try to turn a smart car into the Batmobile?

I digress. This new Ecto is boss and here is quite possibly the hottest take I can give: it’s cooler than the Ecto 1A, the revamped Ectomobile unveiled in Ghostbusters 2. There’s just too much fucking shit on the roof of Ecto 1A, my disbelief cannot be suspended. There’s no way the Ghostbusters would be able to glide through the boroughs without bits flying off every few miles.

Also, the hazard tape racing stripes and flashing digital sign are garish. You’re the Ghostbusters, not the goddamn Money Store.

Again I digress. JG2 is pro new Ecto. Looking forward to seeing Wiig, McKinnon, et al tear ass in these ace wheels. I’ll be there, front row, in my “Ecto 1A Has Too Much Fucking Shit On Its Roof” shirt.

2011’s X-Men: First Class is that rarest of things: a prequel that works. Full of snap crackle pop, First Class breathed new life into Marvel’s soggy mutant movie franchise (now fifteen years old) and emboldened 20th Century Fox to put together a sequel wherein an X-Man goes back in time and tries to erase the stuff from the original movies nobody liked. Actually, the heroes in Days Of Future Past seem to want to snuff out the first three X-Men films entirely, and who can blame them? Wouldn’t you rather live peacefully in an upstate New York mansion, teaching little childrens and apple picking in your spare time, instead of living on the run out of some military grade jet while humanity and other evil mutants are constantly nipping at your heels?

The line between good and evil is in truth a tad blurry in Days Of Future Past; yes, Wolverine (Jackman) travels to 1973 to prevent the assassination that kicks off humankind’s war on the mostly benign mutant species, but he also enlists a minor to help him break an incarcerated Magneto (Fassbender) out of his Pentagon jail cell. You see, in the future, Professor X (McAvoy) and Magneto have buried their hatchet, and they convince Wolv that he needs to get them together in ’73 to make sure everything’s on lock. It should come as no surprise that young Magneto, whose personal allegiances similarly blow around like a windsock, decides at a critical juncture to take matters into his own hands, gumming up the entire ballgame.

And then there’s shape-shifter Mystique (Lawrence), the assassinator, convinced she has to kill her target (a gov’t contractor who builds giant mutant-hunting robots) no matter how many people from her past or her future show up. Nobody can convince her this shooting kicks off a major human/mutant conflict. They should have just cracked open a history book for her. Hey dumb dumb, ever hear of Archduke Ferdinand? Pearl Harbor? Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Yoda? You know, I won’t fault you for missing that quote, you were busy with infinitely better movies when the Jedi master dropped that one.

Though clumsy in places, Days Of Future Past serves up a pretty fun slip through time and delivers everything you want in an X-Men movie: Wolverine whuppin’ up on dudes, Mystique whuppin’ up on dudes, political intrigue, a few yuks, a take on Richard Nixon that would be at home on “MADtv,” and tender bromance moments between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the aged Xavier and Magneto (respectively). If you don’t like it, don’t worry: at some point Days Of Future Past will be retconned out of existence just like every other comic property, because that’s the way this business works.

Who Am JG2?

CHEAP BOOK I WROTE!

The soft cover edish of This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of The Misfits is now available; get that thang and learn all about New Jersey's greatest punk band! Also look at the corresponding photo tumblr and official F.A.Q.